


Reflection

by DerekMyStiles



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Credence Barebone Lives, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Identity, M/M, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, PTSD, Post-Movie(s), Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 15:39:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9278330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DerekMyStiles/pseuds/DerekMyStiles
Summary: The man who wore his face is gone.But so is the man whose face was stolen.How can you keep on living if you can't even look at your own reflection?





	

**Author's Note:**

> I firmly believe that Percival Graves exists, is a good man at heart and therefore deserves to be found and healed post Grindelwald. I also believe he and Credence knew each other before Grindelwald showed up. Hence how this work happened.  
> Please note that I'm no expert on emotional healing and dealing with things or PTSD.
> 
> Also, English isn't my first language and the work is unbetaed, so if you find any mistakes, please point them out to me.  
> Please, enjoy!  
> http://lostinhiding.tumblr.com/

They had bathed him, shaved him and cut his hair. Before, that would make him feel angry and embarrassed, for he was not a helpless baby. Now, he didn’t feel anything as strangers’ hands swept over his body, cradled his jaw and ran through his hair. It was only after, when they were done and held up a mirror, so he could see the result of their work. The pain stabbed through his chest, intertwining with a blind panic. His hand shot out on its own volition and the mirror broke into thousand pieces, scattering over the floor. They cleaned up the shards, but his life still remained shattered.

He spent weeks lying in the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling, the pristine white walls closing around him just as much as the dirty, moulding walls of the cellar that became his prison did. It left him unsettled, waiting for someone who didn’t come, expecting the torture that rested in his past. But he was too weak to protest, too weak to command whole room the way he used to and get his way, to go home.

The idea of home was the only thing keeping him sane and he was grateful that he was ambushed in the street, not in his own house. Oh, he was sure the house didn’t remain empty in his absence, but the whole idea was strangely removed from his own reality. Things might look slightly different when he goes back, but it will still be his home, untainted by his memories.

They never brought another mirror.

 

Sometimes, he dreamed about a boy sitting next to his bed while he was still feverish. The boy was pale, sickly looking, but his eyes were sparkling with something wild as they roamed over him. The boy’s lips were moving, but the meaning was lost, and he remembered only those soft, careful hands trailing carefully over his cheek, his forehead. In the back of his mind, he was certain he knows the boy, but from when and how, he did not recall.

 

They had brought him to his doorstep and left him there on his insistence, and he spend a long time just looking at the door before he finally entered his house. What he expected to bring him freedom, blinded him with panic once more. He had forgotten that his hallway was lined with mirrors and before he knew what’s happening, the glass was shattering around him, the shards falling everywhere like a downpour. The glittering pieces crunched under his soles as he staggered through his house by memory, not daring to open his eyes, not daring to catch his own reflection. The sound of breaking glass rang through almost every room as he cursed his vanity. The magic in him was thrumming painfully as his hands broke mirror after mirror by just a wave of his fingers.

He was so very tired afterwards, collapsing in his bed and falling into fitful sleep. He dreamed of the boy again, but this time they were huddled in a dark alley, the boy pressing close like a particularly friendly cat or a very frightened child. Maybe both. The boy smelled like a wild, old magic and it seemed to sparkle when he ran his fingers over the boy’s jaw and neck.

 

People came and went, bringing him food and newspaper and, he hated that one the most, their pity over his fate. He barely spoke to them and after some time, he didn’t even leave his room, the list of things he needed floating in the hallway, bumping into their shoulders until they plucked it from the air. If they ever thought about the shards covering his hardwood floors, they didn’t say anything.

He dreamed of the boy more and more often, different things too, until one night he woke up gasping for breath as he remembered. _Credence_. Sobbing, the memories came rushing to him along with a painful certainty that the boy is surely dead or even worse, haunted and punished by things he couldn’t control. Betrayed by him.

He curled in on himself even more after that and getting out of his bed became a daunting challenge of his everyday life. Sometimes, he caught himself eyeing the shards in the corner of his bedroom, some of them big enough to bring him reprieve, to free him of this pitiful existence.

 

He had no idea what day or what month it was. He knew it was snowing outside and that the sun was starting to set, but that was it. He could hear the door open downstairs and his emotionless state was briefly chased away by a spike of annoyance. The new charms around his house, adjusted to his new life, let in people with good intentions only. He wondered how many people from before were left standing on the doorstep, unable to enter.

He could hear the visitor’s shoes crunching on the broken glass in the hallway, but didn’t pick up the usual sound of food being set down and newspaper getting folded over it. Instead, the stairs creaked, which was unexpected and scary. A startled gasp echoed through the house. It must be a newcomer then, someone who hasn’t yet seen the wreckage he left behind. His bedroom doors weren’t closed and they creaked as they opened even more. All the air left his lungs when the visiting person entered his room.

 

His mind was roaring even as his body was wrecked with sobs, shaking and trembling, cradled in the arms of his unexpected visitor. _I must be dreaming_ , he thought, _he is dead_.

“I’m not, I’m here.”

He shook his head, not believing that it’s not a trick his mind is playing on him.

“Mister Graves-“

A pitiful whine tore itself out of his throat as he frantically thought _that’s not me, that’s not me anymore_.

The next words were sighed softly, “Percival.”

 

It felt like taking a first breath after nearly drowning. Nobody hadn’t used his name since they found him, addressing him only sir or Mr. Graves. But what was left of Mr. Graves was just a bitter memory, a threat, a betrayal and a vengeance. _Percival_. That was who he was now. A broken man, just a shell of once powerful wizard now defeated by his own shadow that wore his face.

He didn’t know how much time passed, for how long he was shaking before he fell asleep, held closely by someone for the first time in months. He came to again slowly, dried tears crusted around his eyes, but it didn’t matter when he lifted his head and looked at the boy who should have been dead.

“Credence,” he croaked, his voice raspy from misuse.  
The smile he got in return was blinding, jarring with the old memory of a boy huddled in the dirty alleyway. “I’m here now,” Credence said, his eyes sparkling.  
“How…”  
“I had to. I thought you were dead and when they told me they found you, just a week ago…” the boy shrugged. “I didn’t know if you’d want to see me.”

Percival couldn’t wrap his head around the thought that he should be the one apprehensive of their meeting. “How can you stand looking at me,” Percival whispered even as he feared the answer Credence will give him. “How can you stand the sight of me, when my face is his?” Perhaps Credence will now realize his mistake and leave, never to return.

Bony fingers brushed over Percival’s jaw covered by a thick beard, tipping his chin up. Reluctantly, Percival met Credence’s eyes, gutted by what he saw in them. Not disgust or fear. Credence’s gaze was like a caress over his cheeks, feeling that bloomed in Percival’s chest, expanding almost painfully through the void that took residence in there.

“How can I not look into the eyes of a man that saved me?” Credence asked, continuing before Percival could start shaking his head in disagreement. “When I looked at him, I knew in an instant. I knew he is not you. He wore your face like a mask, but he never was _you_. His eyes were cruel and his touches stung like slaps. Yet I feared exposing him for a fraud he was, worried about your fate. The memory of you was what kept me going. You saved me.”

Percival couldn’t look at Credence anymore, his gaze dropping, not believing what the boy was saying. _I didn’t save anyone_ , Percival thought, _not even myself_.

 

Credence stayed and his presence both pleased and unnerved Percival, so used to his quiet solitude. But Credence was soft-spoken and moved through the house like a ghost, never pressuring Percival into acknowledging him or talking. But as much as Percival tried, he couldn’t ignore the boy, remembering the fierce surge of protectiveness he felt before his whole life went up in the flames. Now, Percival didn’t believe he can protect Credence from anything, not even from himself. Especially not from himself. He wanted to scare him away, but at the same time, he craved the boy and his affections even more than before. It was terrifying, because he knew he didn’t deserve anything Credence was willing to give him.

 

The shattered mirrors were swept up. The house was aired. With each sweep of the broom held in Credence’s sure hands, parts of Percival mended together again. As the fresh air rushed in through the open windows, Percival’s mind cleared.

He silently watched Credence day after day, marvelling at his delicate beauty, at his dedication and his unbelievable strength. “You’re a miracle,” Percival whispered one night after Credence woke him up from a nightmare and held him close in his bed. Percival hoped he didn’t imagine the kiss pressed to his forehead or the soft whisper of _you’re what made it happen_ , before the sleep took him again.

 

Credence bathed him, shaved him and cut his hair. Percival didn’t feel anything else but love and gratitude. He didn’t need a mirror, because his own reflection in Credence’s dark eyes was enough.


End file.
